If you are a parent, do you remember taking your child to their yearly check-up? Your doctor or Pediatrician will look at the child and make sure they are healthy and developing normally. One of the ways that they measure physical development is by keeping track of your child’s height and weight. Usually, they will plug these numbers into their system which produces a graph that will show how your child’s development compares to other children their same age and gender. If your child is in the 95th percentile for height, this would mean that they are taller than 95 percent of other children. Overall, you want to see a steady upward trajectory which would indicate healthy development. This is very important to pediatricians and if they see that development is not according to the chart, they will try to determine what is causing the issue. In some cases, slow development can revolve around diet. If your child is underweight, especially early on, they will encourage your child to consume more calories in order to gain weight. Our diet plays a big role in healthy development.
This reminds me so much of healthy spiritual development. Bible intake is the primary source of healthy spiritual development. A steady diet of Bible reading is absolutely necessary for our spiritual growth. It is through God’s word that we understand what God expects of us and how we can live holy lives. As we read the Bible, we will see our sins and the areas in our lives that need improvement. It is in the Bible that we learn what thoughts, actions, and attitudes are consistent with Christian living. Much like physical diets, people try to take shortcuts with their spiritual diets but ultimately we know that there are no substitutes for God’s Word. If your spiritual life was described by a growth chart, what would it look like? Would you see a steady increase? A plateau? A decrease? Ultimately, your Bible intake will play a large role in your development. Now, we will discuss in later posts that Bible reading is more than just reading words on a page. People can physically read the Bible and have no growth because they are not allowing God’s Word to reach their hearts. However, it all begins with reading the Bible. How are you doing in this area? How is your spiritual growth?